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From: everett@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Everett Kaser)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: HP 95LX - somethings are missing.
Message-ID: <25590156@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.>
Date: 2 May 91 22:05:14 GMT
References: <9104271550.AA09947@amuz2.amuz2.z.amu.se>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 42

I'd like to precede the following note with this comment:  discussions of
keyboards and keyboard layouts are ALWAYS religious issues and are ALWAYS
settled by decree.  Kaser's law of keyboard satisfaction goes something
like this:  If n people will be using a product (which has a keyboard), at
LEAST sqrt(n) different keyboards would be required to totally satisfy
EVERYONE.  1/2 :-).  With that out of the way:

Here's a (very crude, very quick) keyboard layout for the HP 95LX.  What
keys will you give up for "localized" keys?  The obvious ones that you'll
mention are the two () keys and the @ key.  The ()'s are primary because of
their heavy use in the calculator, and @ is primary for its use in 1-2-3.

  ESC  TAB   F1   F2   F3   F4   F5   F6   F7   F8   F9  F10  upcur  ON
FILER COMM APPT PHONE MEMO 123  CALC  (    )  BKSPC DEL lfcur dncur  rtcur
   Q    W    E    R    T    Y    U    I    O    P    7    8     9     /
     A    S    D    F    G    H     J   K    L       4    5     6     *
  CTRL  Z    X    C    V    B    N    M   --ENTER--  1    2     3     -
 SHIFT ALT  CHAR  -S-P-A-C-E-    ,    @   MENU SHIFT 0    .     =     +

Now, remember that ANY function you take off of a primary key HAS to be
moved SOMEWHERE, and there's NO room for more physical keys on the keyboard,
and EVERY key already has a shifted function (except CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, CHAR
SPACE, COMMA, and @).  I can envision @ being placed on SHIFT-COMMA maybe (or
perhaps some other scrambling) and that would free up *ONE* physical key for
"localized" characters.

So, two questions:

1) what "extra" characters do you need as primary keys?

2) where are you going to put them?

Remember that SHIFT-somekey doesn't buy you anymore than CHAR-somekey.  It's
still a two-keystroke action. (I'm not trying to be cute/facecious/antigonistic
here, I'm really interested in the information from #1 and the suggestions
from #2).  Also, remember that you can't grow the keyboard in order to add
more physical keys.  One of the primary attributes of this machine is it's
size, and growing the size by any amount is less than desirable.

Everett Kaser                   Hewlett-Packard Company
...hplabs!hp-pcd!everett        work: (503) 750-3569   Corvallis, Oregon
everett%hpcvra@hplabs.hp.com    home: (503) 928-5259   Albany, Oregon